Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd
[1952] 2 QB 795 (Court of Queen’s Bench)
[1953] 1 QB 401 (CA)
In the case of Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain v Boots Cash Chemists (Southern) Ltd, the defendant, Boots faced charges under the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933, section 18, which mandated that sales of certain poisons be supervised by a registered pharmacist. Boots had implemented a self-service system where customers could access products, but a pharmacist stationed at the cash desk was empowered to prevent the removal of any drugs from the premises.
The main issue revolved around determining when the sale occurred within a self-service setup. The Court of Appeal, concurring with Lord Goddard CJ, examined whether Boots had indeed committed an offense under the law.
HOLDING:
The court ultimately ruled in favor of Boots, stating that they had not breached the law. This decision was based on the understanding that the display of goods on shelves in a supermarket, including pharmaceutical products, amounted to nothing more than an invitation for customers to make offers to purchase. As such, the act of displaying the products did not constitute a completed sale, and Boots’ self-service system did not violate the requirement for sales of poisons to be supervised by a registered pharmacist.
LORD GODDARD CJ:
I think that it is a well-established principle that the mere exposure of goods for sale by a shopkeeper indicates to the public that he is willing to treat but does not amount to an offer to sell. I do not think I ought to hold that that principle is completely reversed merely because there is a self-service scheme, such as this, in operation.
In my opinion it comes to no more than that the customer is informed that he may himself pick up an article and bring it to the shopkeeper with a view to buying it, and if, but only if, the shopkeeper then expresses his willingness to sell, the contract for sale is completed. In fact, the offer is an offer to buy, and there is no offer to sell; the customer brings the goods to the shopkeeper to see whether he will sell or not. In 99 cases out of a 100 he will sell and, if so, he accepts the customer’s offer, but he need not do so. The very fact that the supervising pharmacist is at the place where the money has to be paid is an indication to the purchaser that the shopkeeper may not be willing to complete a contract with anybody who may bring the goods to him.
Ordinary principles of common sense and of commerce must be applied in this matter, and to hold
that in the case of self-service shops the exposure of an article is an offer to sell, and that a person can accept the offer by picking up the article, would be contrary to those principles and might entail serious results. On the customer picking up the article the property would forthwith pass to him and he would be able to insist upon the shopkeeper allowing him to take it away, though in some particular cases the shopkeeper might think that very undesirable. On the other hand, if a customer had picked up an article, he would never be able to change his mind and to put it back; the shopkeeper could say, ‘Oh no, the property has passed and you must pay the price.’
It seems to me, therefore, that the transaction is in no way different from the normal transaction in
a shop in which there is no self-service scheme. I am quite satisfied it would be wrong to say that the
shopkeeper is making an offer to sell every article in the shop to any person who might come in and
that that person can insist on buying any article by saying ‘I accept your offer.’ I agree with the illustration put forward during the case of a person who might go into a shop where books are displayed. In most book-shops customers are invited to go in and pick up books and look at them even if they do not actually buy them. There is no contract by the shopkeeper to sell until the customer has taken the book to the shopkeeper or his assistant and said ‘I want to buy this book’ and the shopkeeper says ‘Yes.’
That would not prevent the shopkeeper, seeing the book picked up, saying: ‘I am sorry I cannot let you have that book; it is the only copy I have got and I have already promised it to another customer.’ Therefore, in my opinion, the mere fact that a customer picks up a bottle of medicine from the shelves in this case does not amount to an acceptance of an offer to sell. It is an offer by the customer to buy and there is no sale effected until the buyer’s offer to buy is accepted by the acceptance of the price. The offer, the acceptance of the price, and therefore the sale, take place under the supervision of the pharmacist.
SOMERVELL LJ: I agree with the Lord Chief Justice in everything that he said, but I will put the matter shortly in my own words. Whether the view contended for by the plaintiffs is a right view depends on what are the legal implications of this layout—the invitation to the customer. Is a contract to be regarded as being completed when the article is put into the receptacle, or is this to be regarded as a more organised way of doing what is done already in many types of shops—and a bookseller is perhaps the best example—namely, enabling customers to have free access to what is in the shop, to look at the different articles, and then, ultimately, having got the ones which they wish to buy, to come up to the assistant saying ‘I want this’? The assistant in 999 times out of 1,000 says ‘That is all right,’ and the money passes and the transaction is completed. I agree with what the Lord Chief Justice has said, and with the reasons which he has given for his conclusion, that in the case of an ordinary shop, although goods are displayed and it is intended that customers should go and choose what they want, the contract is not completed until, the customer having indicated the articles which he needs, the shopkeeper, or someone on his behalf, accepts that offer. Then the contract is completed. I can see no reason at all, that being clearly the normal position, for drawing any different implication as a result of this layout.
The Lord Chief Justice, I think, expressed one of the most formidable difficulties in the way of the plaintiff’s’ contention when he pointed out that, if the plaintiffs are right, once an article has been placed in the receptacle the customer himself is bound and would have no right, without paying for the first article, to substitute an article which he saw later of a similar kind and which he perhaps preferred. I can see no reason for implying from this self-service arrangement any implication other than that which the Lord Chief Justice found in it, namely, that it is a convenient method of enabling customers to see what there is and choose, and possibly put back and substitute, articles which they wish to have, and then to go up to the cashier and offer to buy what they have so far chosen. On that conclusion the case fails, because it is admitted that there was supervision in the sense required by the Act and at the appropriate moment of time.
